Blue Rose
by zetsuboushita27
Summary: It's been almost five years since Special Agent Dale Cooper's unexplained disappearance, and Fox Mulder and his partner Dana Scully are determined to find out what happened to him in the idyllic town of Twin Peaks. The locals are friendly, odd, and definitely hiding something...but what? Are there unnatural forces at work here? ((this will be updated i swear bear with me i love u))
1. 1: REGARDING A DISAPPEARANCE

"What do you know, Scully," Fox Mulder asked thoughtfully from behind his desk as soon as she entered the room, "of a Special Agent Dale Cooper?"

Dana Scully gave him a strange look as she sat down wearily. "I don't believe I've heard the name. Why? What's this about?"

He leant over and handed her a slim file, before leaning back again and putting his feet up on the desk, which was, as usual, in a state of disarray. "February, 1989, in the small seemingly idyllic logging town of Twin Peaks, Washington, right up on the Canadian border," Mulder began with a slight smile, "a high-schooler named Laura Palmer was found dead on a riverbank, naked and wrapped in plastic. The murder matched the profile of a killer believed to be connected to the death of another girl elsewhere in Washington State, and the FBI got involved. Special Agent Cooper was sent up to investigate." He paused dramatically for a second. "He never returned."

"What happened to him?"

"Nobody knows, Scully. It's been half a decade since anyone at the bureau has heard from him, or from the local law enforcement up in Twin Peaks."

"Did they find out who the killer was?" Scully asked, flicking through the file and removing a couple of pictures- a photograph of a girl, blue-lipped and frozen, almost glittering with ice, and the image of a tiny piece of paper on which was typed the letter 'R'.

"Well, Scully, this is where it gets a little…spooky. Before his disappearance, the case _was_ solved by Agent Cooper. It turned out to be the girl's father, except it wasn't quite that simple."

"What exactly is that supposed to mean?" Scully frowned.

"Cooper reported that Laura Palmer's father was possessed by an unearthly spirit, demon-like entity named Bob…"

"…Bob? Seriously?"

"…who originated from," Mulder continued, ignoring her, "from a mystical place known only as the _Black Lodge_. Cooper also reported that he solved the case with help from cryptic dreams featuring inhabitants of this Black Lodge, including the dead girl herself."

"A _demon-like entity?_ " Scully stared at him in disbelief. "Right. And this guy…he was an FBI agent?"

"Yeah, and I want to know what happened to him. You'd better get ready. We're heading up to Twin Peaks in a few hours to do a little digging. Oh, and Scully?" He stood, frowning slightly.

"Yes, Mulder?"

"Um, I think it's worth mentioning that this guy…he was, well, a close friend of mine."

"Figures," Scully muttered under her breath, turning to leave the room.

****************************************************************************************************************************************8

"So how come nobody's investigated this before? I mean, an FBI agent just vanishes and no-one thinks to look into it?"

They were in the car, surrounded on both sides by lush evergreens scantily clad in wisps of silver fog, their emerald tips swaying gently in the moody grey sky. The window beside her was slightly open, and Scully could smell the distinct pureness of pine needles and feel the ambient caress of cool bucolic air. She had lost track of exactly how long they had been driving; it seemed like it had been quite a while. The road ahead was long and winding, the clouds low and full; the setting had a postcard feel to it.

"I've been asking that very same question, Scully, and I can't seem to figure it out either. As far as I can tell we're the first to even mention this case in over five years." Mulder grinned, eyes shining. "In fact, I was asking after the details of the case recently when I was directed to a Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole- you might've heard of him."

"The name sounds familiar," Scully admitted, taking a brief look around her at the misty woodlands; out of nowhere a chill ran down her spine. Blinking, she elected to ignore the feeling, and looked back to her partner with some curiosity. "What did he tell you?"

"Well, uh, he was meant to be Special Agent Cooper's direct superior; however, when I talked to him-I say 'talked', but we were both yelling the whole time-" he deflected Scully's questioning glace at this particular comment, "he gave away little to nothing, but…I don't know, Scully, I felt like he knew what had happened. Like he knew, and he was trying to hide it."

"Mulder, why on earth would it be in this man's interest to hide what had happened to one of his agents?"

Mulder hesitated. "I'm not sure, but there was definitely something he wasn't telling me."

They sat in silence for a while. Scully wondered how much further they would have to drive. Something didn't quite feel right about these woods, about the ambiguity of her surroundings; she didn't feel comfortable, despite the natural beauty she found herself encompassed with. Trying to direct her mind away from the abstract, she opened the folder on her lap, scanning its contents quickly.

"It says here that Agent Cooper wasn't the first to disappear while investigating this case, Mulder. In fact, in 1988, Special Agent Chester Desmond seemingly disappeared while looking into the death of Teresa Banks in southwestern Washington," Scully read with a frown. "His partner Sam Stanley returned alone."

"There was also another one, Scully, agent Philip Jeffries," Mulder interjected with an infuriating half-smile, "who vanished from Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1987."

"How exactly was he connected to the others?"

"Well, he returned briefly, out of nowhere, with knowledge of this mysterious Black Lodge in '89, before disappearing again. Hey, Scully, we're here."

The pair had driven past a faded sign displaying the words 'WELCOME TO TWIN PEAKS- population 51,201', presented charmingly amongst the picturesque fir trees and set against the backdrop of the crisp, jagged mountainside. As they entered the town, a presence could be felt, or something similar; it was almost as if they had stepped back in time as they crossed the threshold into the charming little burgh, into a world that seemed, to the outside observer, as if it were filtered through a glowing lens, golden in colour and peaceful in nature. A sense of something washed over Scully, something she could not describe in conventional terms. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, but it made her uneasy all the same.

"Would you look at this place, Scully," said Mulder gently as they made their way slowly through the town of Twin Peaks.

"It's certainly got a feel to it," Scully agreed.

"Like something out of a storybook, or a movie or something. Can you feel that? That there is the feel of town with secrets, Scully, and lots of them," Mulder remarked with a light-hearted smile.

" _Anyway_ ," Scully interrupted pointedly, "looks like we'll be meeting up with a, uh, Sheriff Harry S. Truman. Shouldn't be too hard to remember that."

"Really? That's seriously the sheriff's name?"

"That's the sheriff's name."

"Wow."

Scully smiled, before letting it fade away as the unrest prickled away at her. She was probably, she thought to herself, just tired; they had, after all, been travelling for a long while, and she hadn't managed to get much sleep immediately preceding the journey. These were the rationalizations she made to herself. In reality, however, she knew, she _knew_ , something just wasn't right here, something that to her distress she couldn't quite place.

"You all right, Scully?"

Her partner's concern made her jump as her train of thought was broken.

"I'm fine," she replied vaguely. "I was just thinking about what you said…that this town feels like it's full of secrets. Mulder, I think you might be right."


	2. 2: REGARDING THE BLACK LODGE (part i)

**2: REGARDING THE BLACK LODGE (part I)**

 _An omnipresent stench of petrol burning; a flash of red, or black, or a colour that sat somewhere between the planes of here and there, something he'd never seen before; the semblance of an existence comprised of these things seemed to Dale Cooper as incomprehensible as the possibility that it was his existence that was made up of this madness, and yet here he was._

 _Time slipped, like blood blackened by the glow of a moon that flickered in and out of view, through the fingers of those who retained enough objective reality to have digits made of matter, and as the time slipped, so did Dale Cooper. In the room of intoxicating scarlet, enclosing and yet still infinite, it wasn't hard for Cooper to become convinced that perhaps he himself was nothing more than a trick of the light, a faint glimmer in the corner of the eye of insanity that seemed to constantly hover, waiting for him to snap._

 _There were some things that kept him from slipping too far through the cracks he occasionally imagined in the black and white_

 _Chevron-patterned floor: the recollection of faces, numerous and dear; the characteristically optimistic sliver of hope he held_

 _close to his heart; the echoes of a piece of music, somber, dark and repetitive, and yet also beautiful and grounding. Faded_

 _golden memories of a faded golden town._

 _And, of course, the writhing nest of secrets that lay beneath it, that, however shadowy and chilling,_

 _did nothing to detract from the sensations of endearment, tenderness and sentiment Cooper still clutched to._

The omnipresent scent of coffee; the wholesome coziness of the old hotel nestled away in the trees; the sensation of being transported back in time to a decade when things were simpler, if such a decade did ever exist; the notion that such horrific crimes as the ones they had read about could occur in such a place as this seemed to Dana Scully as incomprehensible as the possibility that the so-called 'Black Lodge' Mulder had told her about did exist, and yet here she was.

Since it had, as they had wound through the surface of the little logging town, been rapidly approaching the early hours, they found themselves in cozy hotel rooms in the Great Northern Hotel, a hulking timber-laden palace that instantly charmed the pair with its pleasant slow-burning atmosphere. The plan was this: meet the sheriff first thing in the morning, before talking to some of the townspeople, doing a little digging, that sort of thing.

It was, as Mulder well knew, rarely that simple, and he had to admit to himself that he really didn't have a clue what they going to find this time. Something about this case was strange; well, even stranger than usual.

He remembered the agent who had gone missing, Dale Cooper, with a degree of fondness; despite sharing what could only be described as a brief and shallow affinity with the man, Mulder remembered him as a profoundly unconventional man with an unusually optimistic disposition and a natural leaning towards the spiritual and strange. Upon their first interaction it was clear to him that Cooper's interest in the so-called 'supernatural' was, unlike Mulder himself, less of an obsession and more of an open-minded _wonder_ , making him wholeheartedly fascinating to talk to about pretty much anything.

As Mulder began to stumble into a restless sleep, he considered the snippets he had been told regarding the _Black Lodge,_ eventually coming to the slightly bleary conclusion that he had no idea what any of it might mean, or even how to go about finding out.

His thought process was, however, interrupted by a jarring new set of surroundings: Mulder noted with some concern that the old-timey mellow hotel room setting had been replaced with a room, spacious yet intoxicating in its abstract nature, with great crimson curtains in place of walls towering on all sides and punctuated only by listless shadows blithely teasing across them, seemingly with nothing casting them; the contrast provided by the floor, patterned with a black and white chevron pattern so unforgivingly stark it was almost nettling, was enough to make eyes dance.

Mulder was sat, he realized, in a chair, looking straight at a very small man in red who gave him a slight flickering grin- or was it a concerned grimace?

Then, to Mulder's horror, the man spoke in a disturbingly disjointed, ardently cumbrous dialect two words, which could at first be hardly understood: "let's rock!"

 **(TBC)**


	3. 3: REGARDING WORDS HEARD BUT NOT SPOKEN

**_Author's Note:_** _ok, I'll try to keep this short! First things first, a massive thanks to those who left comments and reviews; it really means a lot, especially when it comes to things with relatively small fanbases. Second, update schedule will be erratic for a while, because of school and stuff. Expect way more updates in the next 2 or 3 weeks, then fewer after that. Third- I'm trying to mess around with dreams and stuff a little, but don't worry, next chapter will definitely revisit the lodge and all that! Hope you enjoy this chapter..._

"What?"

"What?"

"I thought you said something," Scully frowned, "that's all."

"What did you think I said?"

"Nothing. Forget it," she insisted as the pair entered the warm, slightly old-fashioned sheriff's building. The smell of coffee and wood struck her as soon as she stepped inside the doors.

"No, really, what?" Mulder smiled slightly, bemused.

"Can I help you?" came the almost child-like mewl of the petite blonde receptionist sat impatiently behind a cluttered desk, perched on top of which was a small card reading the name 'LUCY MORAN' in black lettering.

"We're agents with the FBI. We're looking for Sheriff Truman," Scully said authoritatively, grateful for a chance to change the subject.

"I'm sorry," the woman behind the desk said slowly, "but he isn't available at the moment."

"What do you mean, not available?" Scully asked.

"We're here," interjected Mulder, "about the disappearance of one of our agents. It would be really helpful if we could talk to the sheriff as soon as possible."

"Oh. You're here about Special Agent Cooper?" Lucy asked, her voice affected with a slight tinge of sadness.

The two agents glanced at each other for a moment. "Yes, we are. Why, do you know anything about what happened to him?"

"Well, no, but I'm sure that the sheriff will be able to help you. Or he would, but-" she stopped herself suddenly with a small intake of breath.

"But what?" Mulder prompted.

"I'm afraid he's not available at the moment," Lucy intoned monotonously, looking up at them with wide eyes.

"Why, exactly, isn't he available?"

"Because," she almost squealed, "he's gone missing as well."

The woods were deep and damp and dark; the air seemed thick with the near overwhelming scent of the trees. Above the tall, swaying branches that seemed to whisper with the breeze, an endless silver sky was obscured by tendrils of charcoal clouds unfurling their wispy tentacles across the vast greying canvas. Things seemed to swish by, just out of sight, and there was a low, menacing hum in the background that vanished when directly focused upon.

According to the somewhat stern deputy accompanying Mulder into the woods, the sheriff hadn't been seen for almost a week now. Unsure of what to do, the sheriff's department had, apparently, been forced to find a way to split their time and resources on tracking down the sheriff, and maintaining the peace in the town of Twin Peaks.

"Surely keeping the peace isn't too difficult in such a small town. It's difficult to imagine there being much chaos in a place like this," Mulder had asked as Deputy Hawk had explained the situation to him before they had set out into the woods.

"You wouldn't be the first to think that, agent, and you certainly won't be the last. It's hard to picture the kinds of things that go on behind closed doors in this town, however. In fact, as much as I love it here, it's getting more and more difficult to ignore the cracks starting to form, and the secrets starting to spill out." The deputy's dark, wise eyes had grown distant by this point. "And now, with the sheriff gone…"

And with that the deputy had led the agent into the misty depths in which he currently found himself.

And in these misty depths did Mulder find himself not just unsettled by the chillingly picturesque shadows dancing blithely amongst the trees, but also by the rapid onslaught of glimpses of a dream he had experienced the night before. He could not remember much, except several flashes of an intoxicatingly red room, and the spasmodic speech of a small man in scarlet: _'_ _Let's Rock.'_

"What did you say?"  
"Excuse me?" Mulder looked up sharply, his recollections suddenly interrupted.

"Did you say something?" the deputy said. Mulder, stricken momentarily for words, shook his head. Hawk gave him a strange look, before swiftly continuing his sweep of the area.

Mulder could only frown in response.

Meanwhile, Scully was at the sheriff's department, unsure what to do. Usually by now there was a corpse to examine, or a witness to question, or a ridiculous theory- usually related to the paranormal- to argue over. This time, however, there was nothing. There was nothing to go on, nothing solid to do, and she hated it. She was beginning to wish she had joined her partner and Deputy Hawk on their search for the missing sheriff; at least they were doing _something._ Anything was better than the itch of idleness; it didn't help that there was something else about this whole thing tugging at her, making her feel… _weird._ Something about the atmosphere, even the light quality; Scully couldn't quite put her finger on it, and that alone was enough to unsettle her.

She supposed she could ask questions, start to get a vague idea of what could've happened to the missing agent. That would be the reasonable course of action. However, something Mulder had told her about the case was lingering on her mind, and it had begun to fester: the Black Lodge. With no idea what that could mean, and no idea where to look, Scully thought to ask the slightly odd secretary if she had any idea who the best person to talk to might be. This was, at least, _a_ course of action, albeit a somewhat uncharacteristic one. Perhaps too much so, she countered- maybe it was best to leave that line of question until she somewhat understood what question exactly she intended to ask.

"Who are you?" came a voice from behind her, making her jump slightly.

"Special Agent Dana Scully. I'm with the Federal Bureau of Investigation," she replied, noting with some surprise, as she turned on her heel to face who had spoken, that the man before her had just one arm.

"Another one," the man sighed.

"Excuse me?"  
"You should leave while you still can. I'm afraid it may already be too late for your partner, but you should still try."

"What do you mean? Who are you, exactly?"

"I suppose you're here sniffing after the other one. Too late, much too late. BOB's latched on now, and he's not letting go," the one-armed man continued sadly, ignoring her entirely.

"Who is Bob? What do you mean? Sir? Sir, come back here! What are you talking about?"

As the man began to leave, he turned and, to Scully's horror, hissed but three words in response: "the Black Lodge."

Scully could only stand and stare as he left.


End file.
